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TWENTY  MINUTES 
OF  REALITY 

AN    EXPERIENCE 

With  Some  Illuminating  Letters 
Concerning  It 

BY 

MARGARET   PRESCOTT   MONTAGUE 

AUTHOR  OF  "home  TO  HIM'S  MUWER," 

"of  water  and  the  spirit,"  etc. 


)       ■,■>-, 


NEW  YORK 

E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 

681  FIFTH  AVENUE 


ST^wo 


Copyright,  1917, 

BY 

E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 


J^rintcb  in  tfic  ^nitelr  ^tatte  of  America 


PUBLISHERS'  NOTE 

The  interest  aroused  by  the  anonymous 
publication  of  Twenty  Minutes  of  Reality  in 
the  columns  of  The  Atlantic  Monthly  has 
made  its  re-publication  in  book  form  a  duty 
as  well  as  a  pleasure.  The  courteous  per- 
mission of  the  proprietors  of  The  Atlantic 
Monthly  to  use  not  only  Twenty  Minutes  of 
Reality  but  three  of  the  letters  contributed 
by  its  readers  on  the  subject  is  gratefully 
acknowledged. 

In  giving  the  author's  name  for  the  first 
time,  the  publishers  hope  that  the  reader 
will  remember  that  the  letters  were  written 
while  the  article  was  still  anonymous. 


358034 


CONTENTS 


Twenty  Minutes  of  Reality  . 

Some  Illuminating  Letters    . 

I  The  Unremembered  Vision   . 

II  Rock-ribs  of  Truth  .     ,     .     , 

III  The  Permanent  Ecstatic 

IV  Another  Ecstatic  .... 
V  From  an  Old  Scrap-book  .     . 

VI  What  Would  Have  Been  Seen 

VII  An  Artist's  Testimony     .     . 

VIII  From  a  Literary  Man.     .     . 

IX  Cosmic  Consciousness  .     .     . 

X  A  Musical  Point  of  View 

XI  From  a  Man  of  Wide  Reading 

XII  A  New  and  Glorious  World. 


PAGE 

I 

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41 

SO 

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62 

63 

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87 

lOI 


TWENTY  MINUTES 
OF  REALITY 


)  5      ■)■'»»)        1 

,  »      '     'j '       '  '  » 


)    >  1  5       > 


1       *  II 


TWENTY  MINUTES  OF 
REALITY 


A 


S  a  child  I  was  afraid  of  world 
without  end,  of  life  everlasting. 
The  thought  of  it  used  to  clutch  me 
at  times  with  a  crushing  sense  of  the 
inevitable,  and  make  me  long  to  run 
away.  But  where  could  one  run'? 
If  never-ending  life  were  true,  then  I 
was  already  caught  fast  in  it,  and 
it  would  never  end.  Perhaps  it  had 
never  had  a  beginning.  Life  ever- 
lasting, eternity,  forever  and  ever: 
these  are  tremendous  words  for  even 
a  grown  person  to  face;  and  for  a 
child — if  he  grasp  their  significance 


2       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

at  all — they  may  be  hardly  short  of 
appalling.  The  picture  that  Heaven 
presented  to  my  mind  was  of  myself, 
a  desperate  little  atom,  dancing  in  a 
streak  of  light  around  and  around  and 
around  forever  and  ever.  I  do  not 
know  what  could  have  suggested  such 
an  idea;  I  only  know  that  I  could  not 
think  of  myself  caught  there  in  eter- 
nity like  a  chip  in  a  whirlpool,  or  say 
"round  again,  and  round  again,  and 
round  again"  for  more  than  a  minute, 
without  hypnotizing  myself  into  a 
state  of  sheer  terror.  Of  course,  as  I 
grew  older  I  threw  off  this  truly  awful 
conception ;  yet  shorn  of  its  crudeness 
and  looked  at  with  grown-up  eyes, 
there  were  moments  when,  much  as  I 
believed  in,  and  desired,  eternal  life, 
that  old  feeling  of  "round  again,  and 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       3 

round  again"  would  swoop  back  upon 
me  with  all  its  unutterable  weariness, 
and  no  state  of  bliss  that  I  could  im- 
agine seemed  to  me  proof  forever 
against  boredom.  Nevertheless,  I  still 
had  faith  to  believe  that  eternity  and 
enjoyment  of  life  could  in  some  way 
be  squared,  though  I  did  not  see  how 
it  was  to  be  done.  I  am  glad  that  I 
had,  for  I  came  at  last  to  a  time  when 
faith  was  justified  by  sight,  and  it  is 
of  that  time  that  I  wish  to  write  here. 
If  this  paper  ever  chances  to  be 
printed,  it  will  be  read,  I  think,  by 
two  sets  of  persons.  There  will  be 
those  who  will  wonder  if  I  speak  of 
something  that  is  really  there,  or  who 
will  be  quite  sure  that  I  do  not — that 
I  either  imagined  or  made  up  the 
whole  thing,  or  else  that  it  was  en- 


4      TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

tirely  due  to  the  physical  condition 
of  convalescence.  Others  there  will 
be  who  will  believe  that  I  am  speak- 
ing of  the  truth  that  is  there,  because 
they,  too,  have  seen  it.  These  last 
will  think  that  it  was  not  because  I 
was  returning  to  health  that  I  imag- 
ined all  life  as  beautiful,  but  that 
with  the  cleared  vision  that  some- 
times attends  convalescence  I  "saw 
into  reality,"  and  felt  the  ecstasy 
which  is  always  there,  but  which  we 
are  enabled  to  perceive  only  on  very 
rare  and  fleeting  occasions. 

It  is  these  last  for  whom  I  wish  to 
write.  If  this  clearing  of  the  vision 
is  an  occasional  occurrence  of  con- 
valescence, then  what  I  saw  is  of  far 
more  value  than  it  would  be  had  my 
experience  been  unique. 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY        5 

I  do  not  really  know  how  long  the 
insight  lasted.  I  have  said,  at  a 
rough  guess,  twenty  minutes.  It  may 
have  been  a  little  shorter  time,  it  may 
have  been  a  little  longer.  But  at  best 
it  was  very  transitory. 

It  happened  to  me  about  two  years 
ago,  on  the  day  when  my  bed  was 
first  pushed  out  of  doors  to  the  open 
gallery  of  the  hospital.  I  was  recov- 
ering from  a  surgical  operation.  I 
had  undergone  a  certain  amount  of 
physical  pain,  and  had  suffered  for  a 
short  time  the  most  acute  mental  de- 
pression which  it  has  ever  been  my 
misfortune  to  encounter.  I  suppose 
that  this  depression  was  due  to  phys- 
ical causes,  but  at  the  time  it  seemed 
to  me  that  somewhere  down  there  un- 
der the  anesthetic,  in  the  black  abyss 


O       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

of  unconsciousness,  I  had  discovered 
a  terrible  secret,  and  the  secret  was 
that  there  was  no  God;  or  if  there 
was  one,  He  was  indifferent  to  all 
human  suffering. 

Though  I  had  hardly  reestablished 
my  normal  state  of  faith,  still  the 
first  acuteness  of  that  depression  had 
faded,  and  only  a  scar  of  fear  was 
left  when,  several  days  later,  my  bed 
was  first  wheeled  out  to  the  porch. 
There  other  patients  took  their  airing 
and  received  their  visitors;  busy  in- 
ternes and  nurses  came  and  went,  and 
one  could  get  a  glimpse  of  the  sky, 
with  bare  gray  branches  against  it, 
and  of  the  ground,  with  here  and 
there  a  patch  of  melting  snow. 

It  was  an  ordinary  cloudy  March 
day.    I  am  glad  to  think  that  it  was. 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY        "J 

I  am  glad  to  remember  that  there 
was  nothing  extraordinary  about  the 
weather,  nor  any  unusualness  of  set- 
ting— no  flush  of  spring  or  beauty  of 
scenery — to  induce  what  I  saw.  It 
was,  on  the  contrary,  almost  a  dingy 
day.  The  branches  were  bare  and 
colorless,  and  the  occasional  half- 
melted  piles  of  snow  were  a  forlorn 
gray  rather  than  white.  Colorless 
little  city  sparrows  flew  and  chirped 
in  the  trees,  while  human  beings,  in 
no  way  remarkable,  passed  along  the 
porch. 

There  was,  however,  a  wind  blow- 
ing, and  if  any  outside  thing  intensi- 
fied the  experience,  it  was  the  blow- 
ing of  that  wind.  In  every  other 
respect  it  was  an  ordinary  common- 
place day.     Yet  here,  in  this  every- 


8       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

day  setting,  and  entirely  unexpect- 
edly (for  I  had  never  dreamed  of 
such  a  thing),  my  eyes  were  opened, 
and  for  the  first  time  in  all  my  life 
I  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  ecstatic 
teauty  of  reality. 

I  cannot  now  recall  whether  the 
revelation  came  suddenly  or  grad- 
ually; I  only  remember  finding  my- 
self in  the  very  midst  of  those  won- 
derful moments,  beholding  life  for 
the  first  time  in  all  its  young  intox- 
ication of  loveliness,  in  its  unspeak- 
able joy,  beauty,  and  importance.  I 
cannot  say  exactly  what  the  mysteri- 
ous change  was.  I  saw  no  new  thing, 
but  I  saw  all  the  usual  things  in  a 
miraculous  new  light — in  what  I  be- 
lieve is  their  true  light.  I  saw  for 
the  first  time  how  wildly  beautiful 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       Q 

and  joyous,  beyond  any  words  of 
mine  to  describe,  is  the  whole  of  life. 
Every  human  being  moving  across 
that  porch,  every  sparrow  that  flew, 
every  branch  tossing  in  the  wind,  was 
caught  in  and  was  a  part  of  the  whole 
mad  ecstasy  of  loveliness,  of  joy,  of 
importance,  of  intoxication  of  life. 

It  was  not  that  for  a  few  keyed-up 
moments  I  imagined  all  existence  as 
beautiful,  but  that  my  inner  vision 
was  cleared  to  the  truth  so  that  I  saw 
the  actual  loveliness  which  is  always 
there,  but  which  we  so  rarely  per- 
ceive; and  I  knew  that  every  man, 
woman,  bird,  and  tree,  every  living 
thing  before  me,  was  extravagantly 
beautiful,  and  extravagantly  impor- 
tant. And,  as  I  beheld,  my  heart 
melted  out  of  me  in  a  rapture  of  love 


lO       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

and  delight.  A  nurse  was  walking 
past ;  the  wind  caught  a  strand  of  her 
hair  and  blew  it  out  in  a  momentary 
gleam  of  sunshine,  and  never  in  my 
life  before  had  I  seen  how  beautiful 
beyond  all  belief  is  a  woman's  hair. 
Nor  had  I  ever  guessed  how  marvel- 
ous it  is  for  a  human  being  to  walk. 
As  for  the  internes  in  their  white 
suits,  I  had  never  realized  before  the 
whiteness  of  white  linen;  but  much 
more  than  that,  I  had  never  so  much 
as  dreamed  of  the  mad  beauty  of 
young  manhood.  A  little  sparrow 
chirped  and  flew  to  a  nearby  branch, 
and  I  honestly  believe  that  only  "the 
morning  stars  singing  together,  and 
the  sons  of  God  shouting  for  joy"  can 
in  the  least  express  the  ecstasy  of  a 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY        11 

bird's  flight.  I  cannot  express  it,  but 
I  have  seen  it. 

Once  out  of  all  the  gray  days  of 
my  life  I  have  looked  into  the  heart 
of  reality ;  I  have  witnessed  the  truth ; 
I  have  seen  life  as  it  really  is — rav- 
ishingly,  ecstatically,  madly  beautiful, 
and  filled  to  overflowing  with  a  wild 
joy,  and  a  value  unspeakable.  For 
those  glorified  moments  I  was  in  love 
with  every  living  thing  before  me — 
the  trees  in  the  wind,  the  little  birds 
flying,  the  nurses,  the  internes,  the 
people  who  came  and  went.  There 
was  nothing  that  was  alive  that  was 
not  a  miracle.  Just  to  be  alive  was 
in  itself  a  miracle.  My  very  soul 
flowed  out  of  me  in  a  great  joy. 

No  one  can  be  as  happy  as  I  was 
and  not  have  it  show  in  some  way.    A 


12       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

Stranger  passing  paused  by  my  bed 
and  said,  "What  are  you  lying  here 
all  alone  looking  so  happy  about"?"  I 
made  some  inadequate  response  as  to 
the  pleasure  of  being  out-of-doors 
and  of  getting  well.  How  could  I 
explain  all  the  beauty  that  I  was  see- 
ing? How  could  I  say  that  the  gray 
curtain  of  unreality  had  swirled  away 
and  that  I  was  seeing  into  the  heart 
of  life?  It  was  not  an  experience  for 
words.  It  was  an  emotion,  a  rapture 
of  the  heart. 

Besides  all  the  joy  and  beauty  and 
that  curious  sense  of  importance, 
there  was  a  wonderful  feeling  of 
rhythm  as  well,  only  it  was  somehow 
just  beyond  the  grasp  of  my  mind.  I 
heard  no  music,  yet  there  was  an  ex- 
quisite sense  of  time,  as  though  all 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY        I3 

life  went  by  to  a  vast,  unseen  melody. 
Everything  that  moved  wove  out  a 
little  thread  of  rhythm  in  this  tre- 
mendous whole.  When  a  bird  flew, 
it  did  so  because  somewhere  a  note 
had  been  struck  for  it  to  fly  on;  or 
else  its  flying  struck  the  note;  or  else 
again  the  great  Will  that  is  Melody 
willed  that  it  should  fly.  When  peo- 
ple walked,  somewhere  they  beat  out 
a  bit  of  rhythm  that  was  in  harmony 
with  the  whole  great  theme. 

Then,  the  extraordinary  impor- 
tance of  everything!  Every  living 
creature  was  intensely  alive  and  in- 
tensely beautiful,  but  it  was  as  well 
of  a  marvelous  value.  Whether  this 
value  was  in  itself  or  a  part  of  the 
whole,  I  could  not  see;  but  it  seemed 
as  though  before  my  very  eyes  I  ac- 


14       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

tually  beheld  the  truth  of  Christ's 
saying  that  not  even  a  sparrow  falls 
to  the  ground  without  the  knowledge 
of  the  Father  in  Heaven.  Yet  what 
the  importance  was,  I  did  not  grasp. 
If  my  heart  could  have  seen  just  a 
little  further  I  should  have  under- 
stood. Even  now  the  tips  of  my 
thoughts  are  forever  on  the  verge  of 
grasping  it,  forever  just  missing  it.  I 
have  a  curious  half- feeling  that  some- 
where, deep  inside  of  myself,  I  know 
very  well  what  this  importance  is, 
and  have  always  known ;  but  I  cannot 
get  it  from  the  depth  of  myself  into 
my  mind,  and  thence  into  words.  But 
whatever  it  is,  the  importance  seemed 
to  be  nearer  to  beauty  and  joy  than  to 
an  anxious  morality.    I  had  a  feeling 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY        I5 

that  it  was  in  some  way  different 
from  the  importance  I  had  usually  at- 
tached to  life. 

It  was  perhaps  as  though  that  great 
value  in  every  living  thing  was  not  so 
much  here  and  now  in  ourselves  as 
somewhere  else.  There  is  a  great  sig- 
nificance in  every  created  thing,  but 
the  significance  is  beyond  our  present 
grasp.  I  do  not  know  what  it  is;  I 
only  knov/  that  it  is  there,  and  that 
all  life  is  far  more  valuable  than  we 
ever  dream  of  its  beirfg.  Perhaps  the 
following  quotation  from  Milton  may 
be  what  I  was  conscious  of: — 

What  if  earth 
Be  but  the  shadow  of  Heaven,  and  things 

therein 
Each  to  each  other  like,  more  than  on 

earth  Is  thought. 


l6       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

What  if  here  we  are  only  symbols 
of  ourselves,  and  our  real  being  is 
somewhere  else, — perhaps  in  the  heart 
of  God?  Certainly  that  unspeakable 
importance  had  to  do  with  our  rela- 
tionship to  the  great  Whole ;  but  what 
the  relationship  was,  I  could  not  tell. 
Was  it  a  relationship  of  love  toward 
us,  or  only  the  delight  in  creation? 
But  it  is  hardly  likely  that  a  glimpse 
of  a  cold  Creator  could  have  filled  me 
with  such  an  extravagant  joy,  or  so 
melted  the  heart  within  me.  For 
those  fleeting,  lovely  moments  I  did 
indeed,  and  in  truth,  love  my  neigh- 
bor as  myself.  Nay,  more :  of  myself 
I  was  hardly  conscious,  while  with 
my  neighbor  in  every  form,  from 
wind-tossed  branches  and  little  spar- 
rows flying,  up  to  human  beings,  I 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY        I7 

was  madly  in  love.  Is  it  likely  that 
I  could  have  experienced  such  love 
if  there  were  not  some  such  emotion 
at  the  heart  of  Reality  *?  If  I  did  not 
actually  see  it,  it  was  not  that  it  was 
not  there,  but  that  I  did  not  see  quite 
far  enough. 

Perhaps  this  was  because  I  was 
still  somewhat  in  the  grip  of  that 
black  doubt  which  I  had  experienced, 
and  of  which  I  have  spoken.  I  think 
it  was  owing  to  this  doubt  also  that 
afterwards  I  had  a  certain  feeling  of 
distrust.  I  was  afraid  that  all  that 
beauty  might  be  an  uncaring  joy.  As 
if,  though  we  were  indeed  intensely 
important  in  some  unguessed  way  to 
the  great  Reality,  our  own  small  in- 
dividual sorrows  were  perhaps  not  of 
much  moment.    I  am  not  sure  that  I 


l8       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

actually  had  this  feeling,  as  it  is  very 
difficult,  after  the  lapse  of  almost 
two  years,  to  recapture  in  memory  all 
the  emotions  of  so  fleeting  and  so  un- 
usual an  experience.  If  I  did,  how- 
ever, I  comfort  myself,  as  I  have  said, 
with  the  thought  of  the  intense  joy 
that  I  experienced.  The  vision  of  an 
uncarmg  Reality  would  hardly  have 
melted  me  to  such  happiness.  That 
the  Creator  is  a  loving  Creator  I  be- 
lieve with  all  my  heart;  but  this  is 
belief,  not  sight.  What  I  saw  that 
day  was  an  unspeakable  joy  and  love- 
liness, and  a  value  to  all  life  beyond 
anything  that  we  have  knowledge  of; 
while  in  myself  I  knew  a  wilder  hap- 
piness than  I  have  ever  before  or  since 
experienced. 

Moreover,  though  there  was  noth- 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY        IQ 

ing  exactly  religious  in  what  I  saw, 
the  accounts  given  by  people  who 
have  passed  through  religious  conver- 
sion or  illumination  come  nearer  to 
describing  my  emotions  than  anything 
else  that  I  have  come  across. 

These  testimonies  I  read  almost  a 
year  after  my  hospital  episode.  I 
came  upon  them  by  chance,  and  was 
astonished  to  find  that  they  were  de- 
scribing very  much  what  I  had  passed 
through.  I  think  if  I  had  had  noth- 
ing to  match  them  in  my  own  experi- 
ence I  should  almost  certainly  have 
felt  sure  that  these  people,  because 
of  the  emotional  excitement  within 
themselves,  imagined  all  the  beauties 
that  they  described.  Now  I  believe 
that  they  are  describing  what  is  ac- 
tually there.     Nor  are  poets  making 


20       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

up — as  the  average  mind  believes, 
and  as  I  think  I  always  believed — the 
extravagant  beauty  of  which  they 
sing.  They  are  telling  us  of  the  truth 
that  is  there,  and  which  they  are  occa- 
sionally enabled  to  see. 

Here  are  some  of  the  testimonies 
offered  by  people  who  have  experi- 
enced illumination  in  one  form  or  an- 
other. 

"Natural  objects  were  glorified," 
one  person  affirms.  "My  spiritual 
vision  was  so  clarified  that  I  saw 
beauty  in  every  natural  object  in  the 
universe."  Another  says,  "When  I 
went  into  the  field  to  work,  the  glory 
of  God  appeared  in  all  his  visible 
creation.  I  well  remember  we  reaped 
oats,  and  how  every  straw  and  beard 
of  the  oats  seemed,  as  it  were,  arrayed 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       21 

in  a  kind  of  rainbow  glory,  or  to  glow, 
if  I  may  so  express  it,  in  the  glory  of 
God."  The  father  of  Rabindranath 
Tagore  thus  describes  his  illumina- 
tion: 'T  felt  a  serenity  and  joy 
which  I  had  never  experienced  be- 
fore .  .  .  the  joy  I  felt  .  .  .  that 
day  overflowed  my  soul.  ...  I 
could  not  sleep  that  night.  The 
reason  of  my  sleeplessness  was  the 
ecstasy  of  soul;  as  if  moonlight  had 
spread  itself  over  my  mind  for  the 
whole  of  that  night."  And  when 
Tagore  speaks  of  his  own  illumina- 
tion he  says,  "It  was  morning;  I  was 
watching  the  sunrise  in  Free  School 
Street.  A  veil  was  suddenly  drawn 
and  everything  I  saw  became  lumi- 
nous. The  whole  scene  was  one  per- 
fect music;  one  marvelous  rhythm." 


22       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

(Note  his  sense  of  rhythm,  of  which 
I  was  also  conscious.)  "The  houses 
in  the  street,  the  children  playing,  all 
seemed  part  of  one  luminous  whole- — 
inexpressibly  glorified."  (Perhaps 
the  significance  of  that  tremendous 
importance  which  I  felt,  but  failed  to 
grasp,  was  that  we  are  all  parts  of  a 
wonderful  whole.)  "I  was  full  of 
gladness,  full  of  love  for  every  tiniest 
thing." 

And  this  was  what — in  a  smaller 
degree — I,  too,  saw  for  those  fleeting 
moments  out  there  upon  the  hospital 
porch.  Mine  was,  I  think,  a  sort  of 
accidental  clearing  of  the  vision  by 
the  rebirth  of  returning  health.  I 
believe  that  a  good  many  people  have 
experienced  the  same  thing  during 
convalescence.     Perhaps  this  is   the 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       23 

way  in  which  we  should  all  view  life 
if  we  were  born  into  it  grown  up.  As 
it  is,  when  we  first  arrive  we  are  so 
engaged  in  the  tremendous  business 
of  cutting  teeth,  saying  words,  and 
taking  steps,  that  we  have  no  time 
for,  and  little  consciousness  of,  out- 
side wonders;  and  by  the  time  we 
have  the  leisure  for  admiration  life 
has  lost  for  us  its  first  freshness.  Con- 
valescence is  a  sort  of  grown-up  re- 
birth, enabling  us  to  see  life  with  a 
fresh  eye. 

Doubtless  almost  any  intense  emo- 
tion may  open  our  "inward  eye"  to 
the  beauty  of  reality.  Falling  in  love 
appears  to  do  it  for  some  people.  The 
beauties  of  nature  or  the  exhilaration 
of  artistic  creation  does  it  for  others. 
Probably   any  high  experience   may 


24       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

momentarily  stretch  our  souls  up  on 
tiptoe,  so  that  we  catch  a  glimpse  of 
that  marvelous  beauty  which  is  al- 
ways there,  but  which  we  are  not 
often  tall  enough  to  perceive. 

Emerson  says,  "We  are  immersed 
in  beauty,  but  our  eyes  have  no  clear 
vision."  I  believe  that  religious  con- 
version more  often  clears  the  eyes  to 
this  beauty  of  truth  than  any  other 
experience ;  and  it  is  possible  that  had 
I  not  still  been  somewhat  under  that 
black  cloud  of  doubt,  I  should  have 
seen  further  than  I  did.  Yet  what  I 
did  see  was  very  good  indeed. 

The  following  quotation  from 
Canon  Inge  may  not  be  entirely  out 
of  place  in  this  connection:  ''Inci- 
dentally I  may  say  that  the  peculiar 
happiness   which   accompanies   every 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       2^ 

glimpse  of  insight  into  truth  and  real- 
ity, whether  in  the  scientific,  sesthetic, 
or  emotional  sphere,  seems  to  me  to 
have  a  greater  apologetic  value  than 
has  been  generally  recognized.  It  is 
the  clearest  possible  indication  that 
the  truth  is  for  us  the  good,  and  forms 
the  ground  of  a  reasonable  faith  that 
all  things,  if  we  could  see  them  as 
they  are,  would  be  found  to  work 
together  for  good  to  those  who  love 
God." 

In  what  I  saw  there  was  nothing 
seemingly  of  an  ethical  nature. 
There  were  no  new  rules  of  conduct 
revealed  by  those  twenty  minutes. 
Indeed,  it  seemed  as  though  beauty 
and  joy  were  more  at  the  heart  of 
Reality  than  an  over-anxious  moral- 


26       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

ity.  It  was  a  little  as  though  (to 
transpose  the  quotation), 

I  had  slept  and  dreamed  that  life  was  duty, 
But  waked  to  find  that  life  was  beauty. 

Perhaps  at  such  times  of  illumination 
there  is  no  need  to  worry  over  sin,  for 
one  is  so  transported  by  the  beauty  of 
humanity,  and  so  poured  out  in  love 
toward  every  human  being,  that  sin 
becomes  almost  impossible. 

Perhaps  duty  may  merely  point  the 
way.  When  one  arrives  at  one's  des- 
tination it  would  be  absurd  to  go  back 
and  reconsult  the  guide-post.  Blind- 
ness of  heart  may  be  the  real  sin,  and 
if  we  could  only  purify  our  hearts  to 
behold  the  beauty  that  is  all  about  us, 
sin  would  vanish  away.  When 
Christ  says,  ''Seek  ye  the  Kingdom 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       27 

of  God;  and  all  these  things  shall  be 
added  unto  you,"  He  may  mean  by 
''all  these  things"  spiritual  virtues 
even  more  than  things  temporal,  such 
as  what  we  shall  eat,  and  where- 
withal we  shall  be  clothed.  It  may 
be  that  He  stood  forever  conscious  of 
a  transcendent  beauty,  and  joy,  and 
love,  and  that  what  grieved  Him 
most  was  mankind's  inability  to  be- 
hold what  was  there  before  their  very 
eyes. 

Perhaps,  too,  this  may  be  the  great 
difference  between  the  saints  and  the 
Puritans.  Both  are  agreed  that  good- 
ness is  the  means  to  the  end,  but  the 
saints  have  passed  on  to  the  end  and 
entered  into  the  realization,  and  are 
happy.  (One  of  the  most  endearing 
attributes  of  saints  of  a  certain  type 


28       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

was — or  rather  is,  for  one  refuses  to 
believe  that  saints  are  all  of  the  past 
— their  childlike  gayety,  which  can 
proceed  only  from  a  happy  and  trust- 
ful heart.)  The  Puritan,  on  the 
other  hand,  has  stuck  fast  in  the 
means — is  still  worrying  over  the 
guide-posts,  and  is  distrustful  and 
over-anxious. 

It  is  like  walking  and  dancing. 
One  could  never  dance  unless  he  had 
first  learned  to  walk,  or  continue  to 
dance  unless  walking  were  always 
possible ;  yet  if  one  is  too  intent  upon 
the  fact  of  walking,  dancing  becomes 
impossible.  The  Puritan  walks  in  a 
worried  morality ;  the  saint  dances  in 
the  vision  of  God's  love;  and  doubt- 
less both  are  right  dear  in  the  sight 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       29 

of  the  Lord,  but  the  saint  is  the  hap- 
piest. 

Father  Tyrrell  says,  "For  Jesus  the 
moral  is  not  the  highest  life,  but  its 
condition." 

Some  may  object  that  I  preach  a 
dangerous  doctrine;  others,  that  I  am 
trying  to  whip  a  mad  moment  of 
Pagan  beauty  into  line  with  Christian 
thought.  Possibly  I  am;  yet  I  am 
trying  not  to  do  the  one  or  the  other, 
I  am  merely  wondering,  and  endeav- 
oring to  get  at  the  truth  of  something 
that  I  saw. 

And  all  the  beauty  is  forever  there 
before  us,  forever  piping  to  us,  and 
we  are  forever  failing  to  dance.  We 
could  not  help  but  dance  if  we  could 
see  things  as  they  really  are.  Then 
we  should  kiss  both  hands  to  Fate 


30       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

and  fling  our  bodies,  hearts,  minds, 
and  souls  into  life  with  a  glorious 
abandonment,  an  extravagant,  de- 
lighted loyalty,  knowing  that  our 
wildest  enthusiasm  cannot  more  than 
brush  the  hem  of  the  real  beauty  and 
joy  and  wonder  that  is  always  there. 
This  is  how,  for  me,  all  fear  of 
eternity  has  been  wiped  away.  I 
have  had  a  little  taste  of  bliss,  and  if 
Heaven  can  offer  this,  no  eternity 
will  be  too  long  to  enjoy  the  miracle 
of  existence.  But  that  was  not  the 
greatest  thing  that  those  twenty  min- 
utes revealed,  and  that  did  most  to 
end  all  dread  of  life  everlasting. 
The  great  thing  was  the  realization 
that  weariness,  and  boredom,  and 
questions  as  to  the  use  of  it  all,  be-, 
long   entirely    to   unreality.      When! 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       3I 

once  we  wake  to  Reality — whether 
we  do  so  here  or  have  to  wait  for  the 
next  life  for  it, — we  shall  never  be 
bored,  for  in  Reality  there  is  no  such 
thing. 

Chesterton  has  pointed  out  the 
power  for  endless  enjoyment  of  the 
same  thing  which  most  children  pos- 
sess, and  suggested  that  this  is  a  God- 
like capacity;  that  perhaps  to  God 
his  creation  always  presents  itself 
with  a  freshness  of  delight;  that  per- 
haps the  rising  of  the  sun  this  morn- 
ing was  for  Him  the  same  ecstatic 
event  that  it' was  upon  the  first  day 
of  its  creation.  I  think  it  was  the 
truth  of  this  suggestion  that  I  per- 
ceived in  those  twenty  minutes  of 
cleared  vision,  and  realized  that  in 
the  youth  of  eternity  we  shall  recap- 


32       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

ture  that  God-like  and  child-like 
attribute  which  the  old  age  and 
unreality  of  Time  have  temporarily- 
snatched  from  us. 

No;  I  shall  have  no  more  fear  of 
eternity.  And  even  if  there  were  no 
other  life,  this  life  here  and  now,  if 
we  could  but  open  our  dull  eyes  to 
see  it  in  its  truth,  is  lovely  enough  to 
require  no  far-off  Heaven  for  its  jus- 
tification. Heaven,  in  all  its  spring- 
tide of  beauty,  is  here  and  now,  be- 
fore our  very  eyes,  surging  up  to  our 
very  feet,  lapping  against  our  hearts; 
but  we,  alas,  know  not  how  to  let 
it  in! 

Once  again,  when  I  was  almost  re- 
covered, I  had  another  fleeting  visita- 
tion of  this  extreme  beauty.  A  friend 
came  into  my  room  dressed  for  the 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       33 

opera.  I  had  seen  her  thus  a  great 
number  of  times  before,  but  for  a  mo- 
ment I  saw  her  clothed  in  all  that 
wild  beauty  of  Reality,  and,  as  be- 
fore, my  heart  melted  with  joy  at  the 
sight.  But  this  second  occasion  was 
even  more  transitory  than  the  first, 
and  since  then  I  have  had  no  return. 
Tagore's  illumination,  he  says,  lasted 
for  seven  or  eight  days  and  Jacob 
Boehme  knew  a  "Sabbath  calm"  of 
the  soul  that  lasted  for  seven  days, 
during  which  he  was,  as  it  were,  in- 
wardly surrounded  by  a  divine  light. 
"The  triumph  that  was  then  in  my 
soul,"  he  says,  "I  can  neither  tell  nor 
describe ;  I  can  only  liken  it  to  a  resur- 
rection from  the  dead." 

And  this  miraculous  time  was  with 
him  for  a  whole  week,  while  I  have 


34       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

only  tasted  it  for  those  few  short  min- 
utes! But  he  was  a  saint,  and  had 
really  ascended  to  the  holy  hill  of  the 
Lord  through  clean  hands  and  a  pure 
heart,  while  I  was  swept  there  mo- 
mentarily, and,  as  it  were,  by  acci- 
dent, through  the  rebirth  of  return- 
ing health.  But  when  the  inspired 
ones  testify  to  a  great  joy  and  a  great 
beauty  1,  too,  can  cry,  "Yes,  I  have 
seen  it  also  I  Yes,  O  Beauty,  O  Real- 
ity, O  Mad  Joy  I  I,  too,  have  seen 
you  face  to  face  I"  And  though  I 
have  never  again  touched  the  fullness 
of  that  ecstatic  vision,  I  know  all 
created  things  to  be  of  a  beauty  and 
value  unspeakable,  and  I  shall  not 
fail  to  pay  homage  to  all  the  loveli- 
ness with  which  existence  overflows. 
Nor  shall  I  fear  to  accord  to  all  of 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       35 

life's  experiences,  whether  sad  or  gay, 
as  high,  as  extravagant,  and  as  un- 
dismayed a  tribute  of  enthusiasm  as 
I  am  capable  of. 

Perhaps  some  day  I  shall  meet  it 
face  to  face  again.  Again  the  gray 
veil  of  unreality  will  be  swirled 
aside;  once  more  I  shall  see  into 
Reality.  Sometimes  still,  when  the 
wind  is  blowing  through  trees  or 
flowers,  I  have  an  eery  sense  that  I 
am  almost  in  touch  with  it.  The  veil 
was  very  thin  in  my  garden  one  day 
last  summer.  The  wind  was  blowing 
there,  and  I  knew  that  all  that  beauty 
and  wild  young  ^ecstasy  at  the  heart 
of  life  was  rioting  with  it  through  the 
tossing  larkspurs  and  rose-pink  can- 
terbury bells,  and  bowing  with  the 
foxgloves;  only  I  just  could  not  see 


36      TWENTY    [MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

it.  But  it  is  there — it  is  always  there 
— and  some  day  I  shall  meet  it  again. 
The  vision  will  clear,  the  inner  eye 
open,  and  again  all  that  mad  joy  will 
be  upon  me.  Some  day — not  yet  per- 
haps— ^but  some  day ! 


SOME  ILLUMINATING 
LETTERS  CONCERN- 
ING "TWENTY  MIN- 
UTES   OF    REALITY" 


SOME  ILLUMINATING  LET- 
TERS CONCERNING  'TWEN- 
TY MINUTES  OF  REALITY" 

THE  author  of  the  foregoing 
paper  is  indebted  to  the  editor 
of  The  Atlantic  Monthly^  and  to 
others  who  wish  to  remain  anony- 
mous, for  permission  to  reprint  in  the 
following  pages  extracts  from  a  few 
of  the  many  interesting  letters  which 
the  article  evoked  at  the  time  of  its 
publication  in  The  Atlantic, 

The  added  testimony  to,  and  vari- 
ous explanations  of,  the  experience 
which  these  letters  offer,  seem  to  the 
author  to  be  of  very  real  value,  not 
only   as   serving   to   affirm   the   fre- 

39 


40       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

quency  of  these  fleeting  moments  of 
Reality;  but  also,  breaking  forth 
spontaneously,  as  they  do,  from  men 
and  women  of  various  occupations  in 
all  parts  of  the  country,  as  testifying 
as  well  to  an  eager  hunger  and  thirst 
after  righteousness  in  many  unsus- 
pected hearts,  and,  in  many  instances, 
to  a  wonderful  response  of  the  Spirit 
to  this  hunger  and  thirst. 

The  frequency  of  these  responses 
we  often  little  suspect,  for  the  rea- 
son that  the  remembrance  of  them  is 
generally  treasured  in  silence,  until 
the  relation  of  some  similar  experience 
breaks  down  the  barriers  of  reserve 
so  that  they,  who  also  know,  must 
pour  forth  the  gold  of  their  add- 
ed testimony  to  what  has  already 
been    spoken.       It    is    therefore    a 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       4I 

pleasure  to  be  able  to  publish  these 
letters,  which  affirm  so  eagerly  this 
constant  activity  of  the  Spirit.  They 
are  printed  here  with  the  sincere  hope 
that  the  reader  may  find  in  them  the 
same  quickening  of  the  heart  and 
spiritual  stimulation  which  the  author 
of  "Twenty  MinutCo  of  Reality" 
found  in  their  perusal,  and  for  which 
stimulation  grateful  appreciation  is 
here  tendered. 


The  Unremembered  Vision* 

The  article,  ''Twenty  Minutes  of 
Reality,"  will,  I  feel  sure,  have  inter- 
ested many  readers  of  The  Atlantic^ 
some  of  whom,  no  doubt,  can  recall 

*  Reprinted  from  The  Atlantic  Monthly. 


42       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

similar  happenings  in  their  own  lives. 
The  following  short  account  of  a 
somewhat  analogous  spiritual  experi- 
ence that  I  recently  went  through 
may  be  of  significance  to  those  whose 
interest  in  the  subject  has  already 
been  awakened. 

Unlike  the  writer  in  the  May  Al- 
lantic^  my  fears  as  a  child  were 
awakened,  not  by  the  thought  of  life 
everlasting,  but  by  the  thought  of 
everlasting  death.  I  feared  personal 
extinction ;  feared  it  at  times  so  acute- 
ly that  I  seemed  to  realize  what  it 
would  be  to  suffer  complete  disinte- 
gration, to  feel  the  very  pangs  of  the 
snuffing  out  of  the  personal  entity.  I 
sometimes  visioned  to  myself  an  im- 
mense funnel,  fashioned  of  some  un- 
yielding substance  of  stone  or  steel, 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       43 

with,  at  its  bottom,  a  tiny  pin-head 
of  a  hole  for  outlet.  Down  the  steep 
sides  of  its  converging  walls  there 
rolled  masses  of  stone  and  rock, 
which  at  the  bottom  slowly  and  in- 
exorably by  some  unseen  power  were 
ground  to  dust  and  forced  through 
the  minute  opening.  Sudden  terror 
seized  upon  me  as  I  thought:  "This 
shall  be  my  fate" ;  and,  though  I  felt 
that  such  obliteration  somehow  was 
impossible  for  my  soul,  whatever 
happened  to  my  body,  my  panic  was 
real.  I  seemed  to  dread  the  emer- 
gence of  some  undreamed-of  force  or 
will  that  in  a  flash  would  make  the 
impossible  a  thing  accomplished. 

The  acuteness  of  this  fear  was  not 
of  long  duration.  Thoughts  on  this 
subject  were  of  infrequent  occurrence 


44       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

and  I  soon  outgrew  such  fears  en- 
tirely, pushed  them  aside,  ignored 
them,  as  was  only  proper  for  a 
healthy  and  much  occupied  youth. 
By  the  time  I  came  to  mature  faith 
and  belief  in  the  goodness  of  the  uni- 
verse and  the  existence  of  God,  I 
seemed  never  to  have  entertained 
them. 

The  vision  of  which  I  would  speak 
is  not  properly  a  vision,  rather  the 
effect  of  what  I  think  must  have  been 
one;  realization  I  prefer  to  call  it. 
This  realization  was  connected  with 
an  event  that  happened  but  a  year 
ago.  It  was  not'  so  much  a  part  of 
the  event  as  an  aftermath,  occurring 
two  days  later. 

About  a  year  ago  I  underwent  a 
slight  operation  that  caused  me  to 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       45 

Stay  in  bed  for  only  a  few  hours.  I 
suffered  very  little  discomfort  in 
going  under  the  anesthetic;  in  fact, 
few  of  the  physical  sensations  that  I 
had  been  told  to  expect.  What  oc- 
curred to  me  seemed  almost  entirely 
to  be  within  the  realm  of  mind  or 
spirit.  After  a  moment  of  calm  wait- 
ing and  deep  breathing,  my  mind 
suddenly  reverted  to  my  childhood 
days  and  I  asked  myself,  "What  if 
those  childish  fears  were  not  un- 
founded?" Then  a  quick  conviction 
came  over  me  that  I  was  trapped, 
pinned  down  helplessly,  by  an  inex- 
orable power;  that  I  had  deluded  my- 
self through  all  the  years  in  which  I 
had  so  carelessly  cast  aside  fear. 
Reality  in  all  its  hideousness  seemed 
hanging   over   me.      A    great    sound 


46       TWENTY    .MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

reached  my  ears,  or  rather  a  mighty 
vibration  smote  them  with  fast-re- 
peated waves,  as  if  the  whole  ada- 
mantine universe  were  beating  in 
upon  my  soul  some  hard,  ironic  mes- 
sage. There  was  no  power  to  strug- 
gle left  in  me.  I  thought,  "Hark, 
God  laughs  at  you!"  Then  uncon- 
sciousness came  upon  me. 

I  had  little  trouble  in  coming  out 
of  the  ether,  and  I  was  on  my  feet 
again  and  returned  home  the  same 
afternoon.  A  few  days'  rest  made  me 
feel  as  fit  as  ever.  It  was  while 
quietly  lounging  about  on  the  second 
day  that  my  thoughts  reverted  to 
what  had  just  passed.  It  was  then 
that  the  realization  came  over  me.  It 
is  as  vivid  to-day. 

To  my  surprise,  the  past  event  was 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       47 

seen  in  an  utterly  new  light;  the  ex- 
perience undergone  before  the  loss  of 
consciousness  had  lost  its  grip  of  ter- 
ror upon  me.  Certainty  dwelt  calm- 
ly, assuringly,  inevitably  in  my  soul 
— certainty  that  the  past  was  past 
and  had  not  been  an  approach  to 
death,  and  that  the  future  could 
never  be  torn  from  out  my  soul.  I 
knew  that  not  for  an  instant  during 
the  period  of  utter  blankness  had  I 
ceased  to  exist,  nay,  to  be  conscious; 
that  my  soul  had  made  some  tremen- 
dous journey  whose  range  and  des- 
tination my  mind  could  but  dimly 
guess.  I  was  assured  that  the  very 
adamantine  laughter  of  God  had  been 
unable  to  destroy  the  entity  that  was 
my  soul;  somehow  that  mighty  beat- 
ing   in    upon    my    consciousness    no 


48       TWENTY    ^MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

longer  seemed  ironic  to  me,  but  filled 
with  the  ubiquity  and  power  of  in- 
effable life. 

I  was  not  mentally  elated  or  phys- 
ically excited,  but  calm  in  mind  and 
body.  I  was  having  no  vision.  Sim- 
ply I  seemed  possessed  of  the  cer- 
tainty of  having  had  such  a  vision; 
rather  of  having  been  for  a  time  a 
conscious  part  of  the  ultimate  real- 
ity, the  vision  of  which  was  no  longer 
present  in  my  mind.  Something  had 
happened  in  that  period  of  blank- 
ness — I  know  not  what.  It  was  as 
though  I  had  been  borne  gently  up 
out  of  some  dark  abyss,  toward  which 
I  looked  back  now  without  terror, 
into  a  realm  of  mist  and  moving  gray 
cloud  through  which  I  could  dis- 
tinguish immense  granite  cliffs  form- 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       49 

ing  the  walls  of  the  pit  above  whose 
sun-lit  rim  I  had  at  last  been  given  a 
vision  of  unimaginable  beauty;  as 
though,  as  Dante  says,  I  had  seen 
"un  riso  dell'  universo";  as  though 
it  had  been  vouchsafed  me  to  gaze 
for  an  instant  into  the  very  eyes  of 
God  to  receive  assurance  from  his 
smiling  glance. 

This  certainty  of  the  goodness  of 
the  universe  has  dawned  in  my  soul, 
though  I  have  no  vision  to  recount  as 
its  cause.  The  strength  and  quiet 
peacefulness  of  its  presence  have  not 
lessened.  I  am  convinced  that  dur- 
ing that  short  period  of  unconscious- 
ness something  of  immense  import  to 
my  soul  took  place.  How  could 
nothing  have  happened? 


50       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

Thus   it   was   that  my   childhood 
fears  of  non-eternity  were  effaced. 


II 

Rock-Ribs  of  Truth  * 

Reading  the  very  interesting  article 
in  the  May  Atlantic  entitled  "Twen- 
ty Minutes  of  Reality"  inclines  me  to 
contribute  an  experience  of  my  own. 
It  happened  more  than  forty  years 
ago,  but  the  memory  of  it  is  still 
fresh. 

My  experience  differed  from  that 
of  The  Atlantic  author  in  that  it  was 
distinctly  moral  in  character;  in  fact 
it  was  brought  about  by  wrong-doing. 
It  all  happened  so  many  years  ago 

*  Reprinted  from  The  Atlantic  Monthly. 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       5I 

that  I  can  now  tell  the  story  as  if  I 
were  speaking  of  another  person. 

I  believe  I  am  naturally  very  hon- 
est, but  at  the  time  I  speak  of  I  had 
been  pursuing,  for  a  considerable 
period,  a  course  that  was,  to  say  the 
least,  disingenuous,  and  thereby  I  was 
attaining  what  seemed  to  me  at  the 
time  a  great  advantage.  I  was  not  at 
peace,  however,  and  all  spiritual 
truth,  to  which  I  had  previously  been 
keenly  sensitive,  appeared  to  me  dead 
and  unreal.  I  used  to  pray  that  I 
might  be  made  to  feel  the  reality  of 
it,  but  no  answer  came  until,  after  a 
long  time  of  jangling  conflict  and 
inner  misery,  I  one  day,  quite  quietly 
and  with  no  conscious  effort^  stopped 
doing  the  disingenuous  thing. 

Then   the   marvel    happened.      It 


52       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

was  as  if  a  great  rubber  band  which 
had  been  stretched  almost  to  the 
breaking  point  were  suddenly  re- 
leased and  snapped  back  to  its  nor- 
mal condition.  Heaven  and  earth 
were  changed  for  me.  Everything 
was  glorious  because  of  its  relation  to 
some  great  central  life — nothing 
seemed  to  matter  but  that  life. 
While  the  experience  lasted — and  I 
think  it  must  have  been  some  time, 
as  I  remember  it  both  in  the  house 
and  out — I  could  have  gone  cheer- 
fully to  the  stake.  I  walked  on  air, 
so  gloriously  commissioned  did  I  feel 
by  some  higher  power.  Even  the  de- 
tails of  daily  living,  such  as  tying 
one's  shoestrings,  or  brushing  one's 
teeth,  which  had  previously  almost 
suffocated  me  by  their  monotony,  be- 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       53 

came  of  thrilling  interest  as  fitting  me 
for  the  work  I  was  to  do.  Reality 
was  shown  to  me  in  answer  to  my 
prayer.  I  saw^  as  plainly  as  I  see  the 
city  chimneys  from  my  window  as  I 
write,  great  shoulders  of  Truth  and 
Righteousness  reaching  down  under- 
neath all  material  things  like  the 
rock-ribs  of  a  mountain-side  beneath 
the  shifting  clouds  and  shadows.  I 
saw  that  all  material  things  are  but 
clouds  and  shadows  in  comparison. 
Hence  I  have  never  doubted  what 
Reality  is. 

The  only  other  unusual  experience 
that  has  come  to  me  had  no  moral 
bearing  whatever. 

One  day,  for  no  reason  that  I  can 
trace,  in  looking  at  a  perfectly  famil- 
iar mountain-side,  I  became  for  a  few 


54       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

minutes  poignantly  conscious  of  the 
life  of  the  mountain — life  of  beast, 
bird,  insect,  sap  in  trees,  thrill  of  the 
earth;  the  whole  mountain,  and  all 
it  held,  seemed  to  sing  and  quiver 
with  life. 

In  a  few  minutes  it  was  only  an 
ordinary  mountain  again,  thick-set 
with  trees  and  holding  its  secret,  but 
7  was  a  little  different — at  least,  I 
hope  so. 

Ill 

The  Permanent  Ecstatic  * 

What  is  wrong  with  my  psychol- 
ogy? Why  does  one  very  gifted  per- 
son, with  a  pen  to  express  what  he 
feels,  receive  as  a  vision  the  psychic 

*  Reprinted  from  The  Atlantic  Monthly, 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       ^^ 

experience  of  joy  and  the  inner  con- 
viction that  Good  is  at  the  bottom 
of  everything  which  another  very  un- 
gifted  person,  with  no  power  of  self- 
expression,  has  felt  with  more  or  less 
intensity  —  generally  more  —  ever 
since  her  first  conscious  awakening  of 
thought;  but  which,  until  she  read 
"Twenty  Minutes  of  Reality,"  she  al- 
ways regarded  as  merely  the  normal 
mental  attitude  of  the  normal  human 
being? 

As  I  read  this  very  beautifully 
written  article  I  said,  "Of  course." 
"Why,  naturally,"  "Of  course,"  at 
the  ending  of  so  many  paragraphs 
that,  at  last,  I  found  myself  gasping 
in  amazement  that  any  living  man  or 
woman  should  have  thought  an  ex- 
perience of  twenty  minutes  of  reality 


56       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

a  thing  of  sufficient  import  to  write 
about — it  almost  took  my  breath 
away.  But  I'm  glad  they  did.  For 
I  have  been  imprisoned  in  egoism. 
All  my  life  long  (I  am  forty- four 
years  old),  from  the  age  of  five  years 
when  I  danced  madly  around  the  first 
Christmas  tree  I  can  remember, 
shouting  "Joy,  Joy,  Joy!"  I've 
known  more  than  twenty  minutes  of 
this  unveiled  naked  reality  every 
humdrum  day  I've  lived — and,  up  to 
now,  I  supposed  I  was  just  like  every- 
body else,  and  that  everybody  else 
was  like  me,  excepting  misanthropes, 
valetudinarians,  Standard  Oil  mag- 
nates, vivisectionists,  and  kings  who, 
of  course,  we  all  know  were  bom 
blind. 

I  supposed  every  normal   person 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       ^"J 

heard  this  undertone  of  Joy — this 
unseen  but  always  felt  Reality  of 
things,  beating  and  throbbing  under- 
neath the  horrible  and  sad,  under- 
neath even  the  monotonous  and  dull 
(which  is  worse  than  the  horrible  be- 
cause less  impressive  and  intense). 

I  am  a  very  ordinary  woman,  liv- 
ing a  very  ordinary  life,  my  days  (the 
bulk  of  them,  at  least)  given  up  to 
housework  —  tending  my  furnace, 
cooking,  dusting,  washing  dishes;  but 
somehow  these  duties  are  never  really 
gray;  in  the  heart  of  them  there's  al- 
ways a  glow. 

Whenever  I  tend  my  furnace  I  feel 
a  thrill  of  wonder  as  I  think  of  the 
shiny  black  coal  coming  out  of  this 
miraculous  earth,  and  of  the  brave, 
toiling  lives  of  sturdy  men  that  have 


58       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

been  spent  and  sacrificed  down  in  the 
mines  to  dig  out  that  very  coal  so 
that  I  can  tend  my  furnace.  I  really 
love  my  coalbin  (except  when  I  see 
it  lowering  I)  for  I  always  feel  as 
though  it  brought  me  so  close  to  a  big 
Reality — close  to  God  and  close  to 
man.  It's  like  a  tremendous  link. 
The  Beauty  of  things  I  don't  find 
quite  so  poignant  when  I'm  washing 
dishes,  though  there  is  always  a  bird 
warbling  in  the  lilac  bush  outside  my 
kitchen  window  or  a  streak  of  sun- 
light on  the  vines  to  make  me  feel 
the  glad  wild  joy  at  the  heart  of  life 
— and  did  it  not  sound  like  too  great 
a  silliness,  I  could  truthfully  say  that 
I  have  given  way,  day  after  day,  to 
an  ecstasy  of  wonder  at  the  fresh 
clean  water  in  my  dishpan,  and  have 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       59 

Stood,  like  a  gaping  idiot,  sometimes 
for  several  moments,  gaping  at  it  as 
though  it  were  Niagara  Falls — and 
so  it  is,  only  a  "little  less."  From 
the  eternal  mystery  of  the  stars  down 
to  my  very  dishpan  it's  all  so  thrill- 
ing, so  outside  of  ourselves,  so  God- 
put-together,  that  there  never  has 
been,  to  me,  any  "commonplace." 
The  rain  pattering  on  my  roof  al- 
ways makes  something  warm  swish 
around  in  my  heart  just  as  it  does 
when  I  hear  Schumann-Heink ;  it 
seems  perfectly  unescapable,  this 
endless  consciousness  of  Joy  and 
Beauty.  As  to  Eternity  it's  always 
made  me  chuckle.  I've  always 
counted  on  an  seon  with  Walt  Whit- 
man and  John  Muir,  several  seons 
with  Balzac,  Dostoievsky,  and  Burns, 


6o       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

the  evenings  of  seons  with  The  At' 
lantic,  the  mornings  with  Seveik's 
Violin  Finger  Exercises,  and  no  char- 
itable organizations  anywhere  to  in- 
terfere with  the  wholesome  joy  of 
selfishness  and  to  make  one  feel 
elately  dutiful  and  Righteous.  Eter- 
nity is  only  fair. 


IV 

Another  Ecstatic 

I  read  with  deep  interest  the  un- 
signed article  in  the  May  Atlantic — 
^'Twenty  Minutes  of  Reality" — and 
Dr.  Cabot's  comments  upon  it. 

It  was  the  iirst  and  only  time  in  my 
life  that  I  had  seen  an  expression  of 
the  sense  of  the  world's  beauty  as  I 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       6l 

have  felt  it  all  my  life.  Not,  of 
course,  incessantly,  but  for  such  long 
periods  and  so  frequently  that  the 
attitude  of  other  people  towards  life 
and  the  world  has  always  been  a 
source  of  surprise  and  puzzle  to  me. 
Dr.  Cabot's  article  also  was  of  inter- 
est as  casting  a  possible  light  of  solu- 
tion upon  my  own  point  of  view ;  my 
eyesight,  hearing,  and  sense  of  smell 
having  proved  to  be,  upon  a  recent 
medical  examination,  of  peculiar 
vividness.  I  had  always  supposed 
that  other  people  saw,  heard,  and 
smelled  as  I  did. 


62       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 


From  an  Old  Scrapbook* 

The  experience  of  your  anon3^mous 
contributor,  as  told  in  the  May  Al- 
lantic^  is  singular  but  not  unique. 
From  a  scrapbook  of  the  war  days  of 
1861  I  extract  the  subjoined  stanza 
of  a  poem  in  which  the  writer  tells 
how  he  approached  the  Infinite.  No 
name  is  given;  it  is  but  the  vagrant 
verse  from  the  poets'  corner  of  a 
country  newspaper;  but  it  is  of  a 
quality  that  makes  it  live  ever  after 
in  the  memory  of  the  reader. 

Only  sometimes  we  lie, 
Where  autumn  sunshine  streams  like  purple 
wine 

*  Reprinted  from  The  Atlantic  Monthly , 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       63 

Through   dusky  branches,    gazing  on   the 
sky; 
And  shadowy  dreams  divine, 
Our  troubled  hearts  invest, 

With  the  faint  fantasy  of  utter  rest — 
And  for  one  moment  we 

Hear  the  long  wave-roll  of  the  infinite  sea. 


VI 

Knows  What  Would  Have  Been  Seen 

Without  breaking  a  confidence,  can 
you  send  me  the  name  and  address  of 
"Anonymous"  writer  of  "Twenty 
Minutes  of  Reality"? 

I  appreciate  the  article  very  much 
and  would  like  to  write  to  him. 

On  Aug.  15,  1909,  at  10:30  in  the 
morning,  I  had  the  same  experience 
that  he  did,  but  not  just  in  the  same 


64       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

way.  I  saw  nothing  as  he  did,  and 
experienced  no  ''feeling  of  rhythm," 
but  I  was  absolutely  overwhelmed 
with  that  "something,"  and  filled 
with  happiness  and  joy  unspeakable, 
and  so  unexpected,  just  as  it  was  with 
him. 

In  other  words,  I  was  conscious  in 
my  physical  being  of  that  something. 
I  can  say  without  boasting  or  pre- 
sumption I  know  without  a  shadow 
of  a  doubt  what  that  something  was 
and  is.  He  says  he  almost  saw  it. 
Quoting,  "If  I  did  not  actually  see  it, 
it  was  not  that  it  was  not  there,  but 
that  I  did  not  see  quite  far  enough." 
Very  humbly,  yet  very  confidently,  I 
say,  I  know  what  he  would  have  seen 
if  he  could  have  seen  a  little  further. 
I  have  never  seen  it,  but  I  have  been 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       65 

conscious  of  it  and  I  know  what  he 
would  have  seen. 


VII 

An  Artist's  Testimony 

I  had  not  read  far,  not  farther  than 
the  word,  "I  cannot  now  recall 
whether  the  revelation  came  suddenly 
or  gradually"  when  my  heart  seemed 
to  stop  still,  and  so  strong  an  excite- 
ment took  possession  of  me  in  antici- 
pation of  what  was  coming  that  I 
could  not  read  the  rest  of  the  article 
with  any  degree  of  calmness.  It  was 
the  second  time  this  winter  that  I 
had  the  joy  of  realizing  that  I  was 
not  alone  in  this  experience. 

It  was  in  the  summer  of  1910  that 


66       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

this  wonderful  thing  happened  to  me. 
All  I  can  now  remember  telling  you 
in  regard  to  the  experience  was  that 
it  had  suddenly  flashed  upon  me  that 
each  individual  had  a  distinct  and 
separate  personality  and  that  there- 
fore each  was  of  such  tremendous  im- 
portance. Of  course  my  attempt  to 
convey  what  I  had  experienced  was 
entirely  inadequate — I  did  not  my- 
self know. 

That  I  had  seen  Truth  pass  by  and 
had  touched  the  hem  of  her  garment, 
this  I  then  felt  and  now  thoroughly 
believe. 

That  exuberant  joy  and  that 
"Sabbath  calm  of  the  soul";  that 
walking  on  air,  that  entire  uncon- 
sciousness or  rather  losing  of  self  into 
everything;  that  seeing  into  the  core 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       67 

of  things  all  outward  trappings  fall- 
ing away;  that  tremendous  impor- 
tance of  each  individual;  and  above 
all  that  inexpressible  illumination ;  all 
verify  the  identical  experience  with 
that  mentioned  in  The  Atlantic  ar- 
ticle. The  one  word  "illumination" 
seems  to  be  the  indispensable  one  in 
explaining  this  condition. 

It  has  the  Rembrandt  quality. 
Whereas  he  threw  this  light  on  just 
one  part  of  his  picture  making,  that 
part  vital  leaving  the  rest  in  dark- 
ness, this  light  illumined  everything 
and  everybody,  leaving  nothing  in 
darkness.  It  was  the  Rembrandt 
quality  a  thousandfold  intensified. 

If  at  the  time  any  one  had  asked 
me  how  long  this  state  of  affairs  had 
lasted  I  should  have  said  two  weeks, 


68       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

but  upon  reading  of  the  shortness  of 
duration  recounted  by  others,  I  fear 
it  seemed  longer  to  me  than  it  ac- 
tually was.  I  can  remember,  how- 
ever, that  morning  after  morning  I 
arose  with  this  same  joyous  serenity 
in  my  soul  and  that  vital  interest  in 
humanity,  the  entire  forgetfulness  of 
self  and  the  wonderful  light  every- 
where. I  also  remember  this  incident 
of  that  time :  One  of  the  ladies  com- 
ing up  to  me  one  day  as  I  was  idly 
watching  the  people,  said,  "Do  you 
write?"  When  I  replied  in  the  neg- 
ative, she  said,  "You  seem  so  intense- 
ly interested  in  everything  these  days 
and  yet  so  absolutely  detached."  It 
was  rather  strange,  as  I  recall,  that  I 
was  seized  with  a  desire  to  write  at 
that  time  and  upon  two  occasions  did 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       69 

SO,  taking  as  material  the  people 
about  me — the  writing  seemed  to 
come  spontaneously  almost  without 
taking  thought. 

Since  that  time  I  have  endeavored 
to  explain  the  experience  only  twice. 
Naturally  one  fears  to  meet  skepti- 
cism about  what  to  us  is  more 
precious  than  much  iine  gold.  On 
the  faces  of  those  to  whom  I  did  at- 
tempt to  explain  I  saw  written  sym- 
pathy and  an  earnest  endeavor  to 
understand,  but  I  realized  again  the 
utter  helplessness  of  trying  to  con- 
vey to  them  any  conception  of  the 
wonder  and  joy  which  possessed  me. 

So  I  said  no  more,  wondering 
whether  every  one  who  was  in  con- 
stant perfect  health  enjoyed  this  con- 


yO       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

dition  or  whether  I  alone,  so  to  speak, 
was  "queer." 

Then  came  Edward  Carpenter. 
February  last  I  was  reading  his 
''Days  with  Walt  Whitman"  when 
I  suddenly  held  my  breath  and 
eagerly  devoured  the  pages,  and  then 
I  became  still  with  a  dawning  won- 
der. 

First  doubt,  then  wonder  and  joy 
seized  me  to  find  that  what  I  had 
treasured  as  an  experience  possibly 
peculiar  to  me  alone,  was  shared  by 
others.  I  was  abashed  to  think  that 
I  could  have  had  an  experience  akin 
to  that  which  so  immense  a  genius 
as  Walt  Whitman  had,  but  when  I 
read  further  that  it  was  not  uncom- 
mon to  ordinary  folk  I  felt  relieved 
— although  all  the  time  in  my  heart 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       7I 

of  hearts  I  knew  the  experience  was 
the  same,  in  kind  if  not  in  degree. 

I  thought  that  if  life  was  to  be  like 
this,  then  surely  I  had  been  dead  all 
the  time  —  prison  bars  had  been 
broken,  and  at  last  all  fetters,  mental 
and  physical,  had  fallen  from  me.  I 
was  free  at  last — I  saw  no  longer  but 
face  to  face. 

I  have  found  that  since  that  mem- 
orable summer  the  revelation  of  an- 
other bit  of  the  Truth  always  brings 
with  it  a  forgetting  of  self,  and  in- 
tense interest  in  all  about  me  and  a 
wonder  that  any  one  ever  could  be 
bored — and  an  unshakable  serenity. 
This  experience  came  for  the  second 
or  third  time  last  March.  No  one 
could  have  been  more  astonished  than 
I  when  I  realized  that  the  condition 


72       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

had  gone — left  me  without  my  being 
at  all  aware  of  it.  I  did  not  realize 
it  as  unusual  while  experiencing  it 
and  thought  it  would  be  my  constant 
state  from  that  time  on. 


VIII 

From  a  Literary  Man 

I  was  immensely  interested  in 
''Twenty  Minutes  of  Reality,"  with 
its  wonderful  perception,  for  the  mo- 
ment, of  "how  wildly  beautiful  and 
joyous  is  the  whole  of  life."  The 
vision  of  actuality  thus  revealed  con- 
firms what  for  me  has  long  seemed 
a  great  truth:  that  life  in  its  divine 
reality,  whose  consciousness  we  each 
and   all  must  ultimately   share,   in- 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       73 

eludes  in  its  eestatie  joy  all  aspeets  of 
existenee.  Hence  a  normal  part  of 
it  must  be  the  dark  sides  as  well :  the 
pain,  the  suffering,  the  conflict,  the 
sinning,  the  sorrow,  all  the  tragedy; 
the  evil  aspects  the  shadows,  while 
the  good  are  the  high  lights — but  all 
essential  to  the  whole — all  "a  part 
of  the  whole  mad  ecstasy"  with 
which  all  being  pulsates.  Could  we 
view  life  with  sufficient  detachment, 
apart  from  our  petty  personalities,  we 
might  perceive  this. 

I  remember  two  occasions,  at  least, 
when  external  harmonies  seemed  to 
strike  the  corresponding  chord  within 
me  that  for  a  few  minutes  aroused 
the  sense  of  cosmic  consciousness,  of 
the  universal  ecstasy  of  being. 

Do    you    know    "Light    on    the 


74       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

Path"  ?  For  me  it  is  one  of  the  great 
revelations  of  inspired  literature.  It 
has  a  passage  so  in  accord  with  that 
article's  vision  of  the  Divine  Ecstasy 
that  I  must  quote  it: 

"Listen  to  the  song  of  life. 

"Store  in  your  memory  the  melody 
you  hear. 

"Learn  from  it  the  lesson  of  har- 
mony .  .  . 

"Only  fragments  of  the  great  song 
come  to  your  ears  while  yet  you  are 
but  man.  But  if  you  listen  to  it,  re- 
member it  faithfully,  so  that  none 
which  has  reached  you  is  lost,  and 
endeavor  to  learn  from  it  the  mean- 
ing of  the  mystery  which  surrounds 
you.  In  time  you  will  need  no 
teacher.  For  as  the  individual  has 
voice,  so  has  that  in  which  the  indi- 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       75 

vidual  exists.  Life  itself  has  speech 
and  is  never  silent.  And  its  utter- 
ance is  not,  as  you  that  are  deaf  may- 
suppose,  a  cry:  it  is  a  song.  Learn 
from  it  that  you  are  part  of  the  har- 
mony; learn  from  it  to  obey  the  laws 
of  the  harmony." 


IX 

Thinks  It  Was  Cosmic  Consciousness 

I  can  give  full  credence  to  your 
experience,  for  I  have  felt  something 
of  that  state  of  consciousness  many 
times,  and  in  a  lesser  degree  all  the 
time.  Subconsciously  I  do  feel  it 
all  the  time,  although  my  outer  mind 
must  be  often  occupied  with  the 
things  of  everyday  life.     Sometimes 


76       TWENTY^  MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

I  can  walk  along  the  street  amid  the 
noise  and  din  and  confusion  of  a 
great  city,  and  yet  to  me  that  is  mere- 
ly a  dream ;  the  reality  is  the  sureness 
and  the  grandeur  and  the  glory  of 
Life,  the  inexpressible  love  of  God, 
and  the  sublime  order  of  creation. 

I  once  knew  a  young  woman  who 
attained  suddenly  to  some  such  a 
condition  and  went  for  about  ten 
weeks  of  such  marvelous  happiness 
that  she  could  hardly  speak  of  it ;  and 
once  she  saw  twenty  angels  and  was 
distinctly  conscious  of  having  spent 
two  hours  in  their  company. 

What  you  had,  it  seems  to  me,  was 
a  glimpse  of  what  is  called  the  "Cos- 
mic Consciousness."  There  is  a  big 
book  in  the  libraries  of  that  title, 
which    describes    the   experiences    of 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       77 

about  thirty  persons  who  had  more 
or  less  of  that  consciousness  of  the 
universal. 

Many  parts  of  Swedenborg's  writ- 
ings show  what  a  wealth  of  insight 
is  possible  to  the  human  conscious- 
ness. 

For  many  years  I  have  read  every- 
thing I  could  find  that  in  any  way 
paralleled  my  own  experience  in  that 
permanent  joy-givmg  view  of  the 
Universe,  and  can  assure  you  that 
other  human  beings  have  shared  your 
own  joyful  view,  and  to  many  it  be- 
comes not  merely  ''Twenty  Minutes 
of  Reality"  but  ''the  Reality." 

I  am  convinced  that  this  state  of 
consciousness  is  the  proper  heritage  of 
''Whosoever  will"  receive  it  in  God's 
way,  and  think  enough  in  terms  of 


78       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

the  universal  purpose  and  plan  to  be- 
come acclimated  to  things  celestial.  I 
feel  sure  that  there  are  certain  laws 
of  mental  development  whereby  al- 
most any  person  who  will  faithfully 
follow  them  can  so  greatly  enlarge 
his  concept  of  life  that  it  will  be 
like  a  chicken  stepping  from  its  shell 
into  the  sunlight  and  the  world  beau- 
tiful. 

As  to  the  methods  available  for  de- 
veloping cosmic  consciousness  I  know 
of  nothing  that  can  for  a  moment 
compare  with  silent  prayer.  Studies 
along  advanced  lines  and  a  search  for 
the  Truth  wherever  found  are  help- 
ful in  giving  one  a  clearer  concept  of 
what  to  pray  for  and  how  to  pray. 
But  union  with  God  is  the  end  and 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       79 

aim  of  it  all,  and  includes  all  that 
can  be  desired. 

Prayer  alone  will  not  take  the 
place  of  action  in  response  to  what 
prayer  has  revealed  as  the  right  thing 
to  do.  Unquestioned  obedience  to 
the  intuitions,  cutting  loose  from  all 
merely  human  policies  that  would 
compete  with  intuition  for  your  de- 
cision, these  are  important  steps. 
Seeking  the  intellectual  confirmation 
of  things  received  intuitively  also 
gives  a  balance  to  the  thought  and  a 
solidity  to  one's  perceptions.  One 
can  go  just  about  so  far  by  intuition 
and  then  the  rest  of  the  mind  must 
catch  up.  Happy  is  the  man  who 
knows  how  to  develop  all  his  facul- 
ties equally  and  keep  them  abreast 
in  the  upward  march.     Though  you 


8o       TWENTY    JMINUTES    OF    REALITY 

climb  the  mountains,  if  you  leave 
something  essential  in  the  valley,  you 
will  some  day  have  to  come  back  and 
get  it.  On  your  upward  journey  take 
with  you  all  you  shall  ever  need. 

Prayer  is  the  basic  instinct  of  being 
— the  creature  renewing  his  life  at  its 
Source.  From  this  fountain  of  life 
all  other  instincts  and  faculties  are 
vivified.  Every  "drop"  of  life  that 
refreshes  the  extremities  first  flowed 
in  through  the  one  great  channel 
which  connects  us  with  God. 

When  Jesus  was  asked  what  is  the 
greatest  Commandment,  he  chose  the 
First,  and  elaborated  it,  saying, 
"Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God 
with  all  thy  mind,  and  all  thy  heart, 
and  all  thy  soul,  and  thy  neighbor 
as  thyself."    And  He  said,  "On  these 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       8l 

two  commandments  hang  all  the  Law 
and  the  Gospel." 

All  means  every  part  of.  All  the 
mind  means  every  faculty  of  the 
mind,  such  as  the  Memory,  the 
Reason,  the  Imagination,  the  Intui- 
tion. All  the  heart  means  the  Love, 
the  Obedience,  the  Response,  the 
Will,  the  Emotion,  the  Purpose,  the 
Motives,  the  Belief  (that  is,  what 
one  admits  to  himself  is  true).  All 
the  soul  includes  a  complete  adjust- 
ment of  the  soul  to  God's  laws;  it 
includes  repentance,  confession,  obe- 
dience, consecration,  sanctiiication, 
and  eternal  surrender  to  the  will  of 
God. 

Everything  contained  in  the  mem- 
ory must  be  brought  to  light  and  laid 
on  the  altar  of  God;  He  must  be  al- 


82       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

lowed  to  transform  it  into  an  instru- 
ment of  use  by  reinterpretation.  Just 
as  a  reformed  "white  slaver"  conse- 
crates his  personal  knowledge  of  the 
ways  of  the  underworld  to  the  task 
of  redeeming  those  that  are  still  in 
the  vortex.  Every  impression,  good 
or  bad,  ever  made  on  the  memory, 
can  be  made  useful  when  God  is  the 
User.  Hence  to  worship  God  with 
all  the  mind  includes  the  memory 
and  all  it  contains.  Hence  the  neces- 
sity that  the  individual  should  pass 
through  a  period  when  all  the  mem- 
ory contains  is  brought  up  and  laid 
on  the  altar. 

In  a  like  manner  must  the  Reason 
be  cleansed  of  all  its  false  reason- 
ings, and  filled  with  true  reasonings, 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       83 

the  false,  transformed,  giving  point 
to  the  new,  and  true. 

So  also  must  the  Imagination  be 
redeem^ed,  reformed,  and  made  an  in- 
strument of  God,  and  able  to  take 
its  place  in  the  worship  of  God,  and 
be  forever  the  forerunner  of  experi- 
ences yet  to  be,  and  the  handler  of 
things  not  present.  It  is  through  the 
Imagination  that  man's  mind  com- 
prehends the  cosmos.  Imagination  is 
the  creative  faculty.  The  image  of 
the  Creator  must  be  creative.  The 
Universe  exists  in  the  Imagination  of 
God.  Our  Universe  exists  in  our 
Imagination,  that  is,  as  much  of  the 
Universe  as  is  ours  is  what  the  Imag- 
ination can  encompass.  Hence  the 
importance  of  expanding  the  capacity 
of  the  Imagination. 


84       TWENTY    ;MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

You  can  in  like  manner  amplify 
every  faculty  of  mind,  heart  and  soul, 
and  by  developing  each  (through 
prayer  and  obedience)  you  develop 
more  and  more  all  the  faculties 
whereby  you  may  come  into  closer 
touch  with  the  Great  Reality. 


X 

From  a  Musical  Point  of  View 

.  .  .  The  experience  so  well  por- 
trayed is  not  an  unusual  one  or  in 
any  degree  occult  and  certainly  not 
confined  to  "convalescents."  It  is 
simply  the  language  of  art  and  of 
music — it  is  nature-language  pure, 
primitive  and  spontaneous.  That  the 
experience  lasted  only  twenty  min- 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY      85 

utes  is  quite  natural  for  any  of  us  who 
follow  conventional  pursuits  —  in 
fact  a  shorter  interval,  a  mere  glimpse 
of  the  "reality"  between  the  acts  of 
the  "play,"  is  all  that  is  vouchsafed 
to  many  of  us — and  yet  the  vision 
once  seen  can  never  be  forgotten  and 
the  experience  once  realized  cries  out 
for  repetition. 

Can  any  one  doubt  that  the  state 
of  mind  described  by  the  writer  was 
quite  that  of  the  great  Beethoven  as 
he  wandered  alone  in  the  fields  and 
forests  and  heard  those  heavenly  har- 
monies of  nature  which,  by  reason  of 
his  genius,  he  was  able  to  translate 
into  Symphonies  and  Sonatas'?  The 
rippling  brook,  the  singing  bird,  the 
rustle  of  the  leaves  and  the  call  of 
the  peasant  were  all  harmonized  with 


86       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

the  thousand  and  one  other  sounds 
and  visions  of  nature  as  it  is  and 
transcribed  by  him  for  man  to  use  as 
a  medium  of  communing  with  our 
great  stranger-mother  and  of  more 
quickly  getting  in  touch  with  the 
eternal  verities  of  the  great  on-rush- 
ing Universe  which  smiles  alike  at 
the  buzzing  bee  and  the  blood-soaked 
man  in  the  trenches,  which  is  un- 
shocked  alike  by  the  abattoirs  of  Chi- 
cago and  the  battlefields  of  Europe, 
which  is  serene  though  trembling 
with  passion,  and  ever  ready  to  lift 
into  rapture  any  of  its  children  who 
will  dress  themselves  in  a  proper 
mental  garb  for  an  audience  with  her. 
But  it  is  by  no  means  necessary  to  don 
a  musical  "garb"  for  an  audience. 
One  has  only  to  read  a  few  pages  of 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       87 

Walt  Whitman,  for  example,  to  feel 
himself  allied  with  the  birds  and  the 
winds  and  the  steel  mills  and  the 
sounds  of  the  ocean.  One  has  only 
to  contemplate  a  great  painting  to 
have  the  fact  brought  home  to  him 
that  all  life  is  harmony  and  joy  and 
peace  and  progress.  One  has  only  to 
walk  alone,  or  with  a  really  sympa- 
thetic companion,  in  the  deep  woods 
and  permit  nature's  sounds  to  pene- 
trate his  being  to  feel  that  he  is  a 
part  of  it  all — ^just  as  the  leaf  on  the 
tree  or  the  bird  on  the  branch — and 
that  the  worries  and  cares  and  respon- 
sibilities of  life  are  due  to  modern 
man-made  conventions  and  are  not  in 
keeping  with  nature's  laws,  which 
were  framed  only  for  happiness, 
health,  life  and  love. 


88       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

These  conditions  of  mind  which 
our  writer  calls  "illuminations"  can- 
not, of  course,  be  controlled  by  the 
will  and  can  only  occur  when  condi- 
tions are  ideally  favorable;  and  yet 
they  can  be  courted  by  putting  one's 
self  in  position  to  receive  them.  They 
come  when  least  expected  and  disap- 
pear as  suddenly.  No  truly  great  art 
or  music  or  poetry  or  even  philosophy, 
was  ever  given  to  the  world  except 
through  the  medium  of  that  greater 
vision,  which  enables  one  to  see  above 
and  beyond  the  conventions  of  civili- 
zation into  the  everlasting  Realities. 
Indeed  it  may  be  that  genius  is  sim- 
ply the  prolongation  or  long-continu- 
ing of  that  superior  and  detached  vis- 
ion or  "illumination."  On  the  other 
hand    any    sensitive    soul,    possessed 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       89 

with  even  a  spark  of  idealism  or  imag- 
ination, can  have  and  does  have,  even 
though  it  may  be  at  very  rare  inter- 
vals, a  fleeting  glimpse,  a  passing  vis- 
ion, an  "illumination,"  which  shows 
him  the  surpassing  beauty  of  life,  the 
divine  harmony  and  joy  and  unity  of 
nature. 


From  a  Man   of  Wide   Reading  and 
Much  Deep  Thinking 

You  ask  me  to  describe  my  own 
experience.  I  had  not  intended  to 
say  much  about  it,  but  in  answer  to 
your  direct  request  I  cannot  do 
otherwise  than  state  it  as  clearly  as 
I  can.  I  feel  that  these  things  are 
not  altogether  private  property,  but 


90       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

are  data  for  settling  questions  of  such 
large  significance  that  where  confi- 
dences will  not  be  misused  one  must 
say  what  he  can.  Such  experiences  as 
I  have  had  I  should  group  in  three 
classes,  first,  the  single  experience  by 
which  I  regained  my  religious  faith; 
second,  a  group  of  experiences  two  or 
three  years  subsequent  to  that  and 
later,  connected  with  the  belief  I 
came  to  adopt,  that  communication 
was  possible  with  those  who  had 
passed  from  this  life.  Some  of  these 
latter  experiences  were  almost,  if  not 
quite,  as  intense  as  the  first  named. 
Third,  the  experience  of  quiet,  grad- 
ual development  of  insight  into  spir- 
itual things  going  on  steadily  from 
day  to  day.  Of  the  three,  I  think  it 
is  the  third  I  value  most.    It  was  of 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       Ql 

the  first  you  asked.  My  early  life 
was  spent  under  my  mother's  influ- 
ence, which  was  concentrated  upon 
religious  things  to  an  unusual  degree. 
I  knew  nothing  of  critical  thought. 
When  I  became  acquainted  with  the 
latter  I  found  myself  gradually 
driven  in  thought  from  position  after 
position  that  I  had  previously  held, 
till  I  was  practically  agnostic.  I  left 
the  ministry  for  teaching.  A  con- 
siderable period  of  years  followed 
filled  with  frequent  discouragement. 
My  health  was  weak,  and  my  early 
life,  in  which  I  was  largely  cut  off 
from  the  thoughts  and  interests  and 
activities  that  put  one  in  touch  with 
the  mass  of  mankind  around  him,  left 
me  in  a  position  where  adjustment  to 
life  and  conduct  of  my  classes  was 


92       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

accompanied  with  intense  nervous 
strain.  Many  and  many  a  time  I 
have  lain  down  to  rest  when  it 
seemed  to  me  the  only  thought  that 
gave  me  any  pleasure  was  to  count 
over  in  various  ways  the  number  of 
years  till  I  should  probably  be  dead. 
I  thought  from  time  to  time  on  re- 
ligious subjects,  but  I  seemed  merely 
to  go  over  and  over  again  the  same 
arguments  which  led  to  no  new  re- 
sults. Like  Omar  Khayyam  I  went 
out  at  the  same  door  by  which  I  had 
come  in.  I  remember  definitely  fore- 
casting my  probable  future  belief  and 
saying  to  myself  that  I  should  prob- 
ably never  change  my  position,  for  it 
was  unlikely  that  any  essentially  new 
argument  would  come  to  me,  and  the 
old  ones  I  had  thought  over  and  over 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       93 

till  they  were  unlikely  to  yield  to  me 
any  new  light.  At  best  it  might  be 
a  slight  shifting  of  estimate  of  prob- 
abilities. 

There  came  in  the  spring  of  1909 
an  experience  I  should  never  have 
considered  possible  for  me  before.  A 
comparatively  trivial  matter  sug- 
gested to  me  the  possibility  that  one 
of  my  chief  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
belief  might  be  met  in  a  certain  man- 
ner. The  question  arose  in  my  mind, 
what  if  after  all  the  belief  I  had  held 
before  might  be  true?  I  knelt  down 
by  the  side  of  my  bed  with  that  verse 
from  Revelations  in  my  mind,  "Be- 
hold I  stand  at  the  door  and  knock. 
If  any  man  hear  my  voice  and  open 
the  door,  I  will  come  in  to  him,  and 
will  sup  with  him  and  he  with  me," 


94       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

and  I  prayed  that  if  those  things  were 
really  true  God  would  show  them  to 
me  and  make  them  real  to  me.  There 
followed  an  emotional  experience  so 
intense  that  for  a  long  time  after- 
wards I  could  not  even  speak  of  it 
without  breaking  down.  The  reality 
of  religious  truth  seemed  to  be  made 
so  vitally  living  to  me  that  I  could 
not  doubt  it.  The  conviction  was  of 
an  entirely  different  order  from  the 
intellectual  weighing  of  arguments  I 
had  known  before.  I  went  from  this 
experience  and  out  to  my  ordinary 
occupations  in  the  world,  and  I  found 
that  the  conviction  I  had  gained 
gradually  faded  away  and  doubts 
arose.  As  I  later  lay  on  my  bed  rest- 
ing I  reasoned  the  thing  out  with 
myself.    I  felt  just  three  courses  lay 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       95 

open  to  me.  First,  to  rely  on  mere 
reason.  But  the  world  had  followed 
that  course  and  is  at  variance  as  to 
the  result  still ;  I  also  had  followed  it 
without  result.  Second,  to  say  I 
would  take  my  stand  by  force  of  will 
on  the  conviction  brought  to  me  be- 
fore. But  if  one  did  that  he  would 
condemn  himself  to  permanent  rigid- 
ity of  thought.  There  was  just  a 
third  possibility.  If  religious  faith 
was  really  justified  and  God  wanted 
us  to  know  Him  He  must  reveal 
Himself  and  make  Himself  real  to 
me  as  was  the  case  before.  I  felt 
this  was  the  only  course  to  take,  and 
I  waited,  looking  up  to  God.  By  and 
by  the  conviction  came  again  (more 
quietly,  however).  There  followed 
a  considerable  period  of  fluctuations 


96       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

of  this  sort.  I  would  go  into  the  or- 
dinary world,  and  be  distracted  by  its 
varied  objects,  and  my  conviction 
would  grow  dim.  I  would  come  back 
home  and  wait,  holding  my  heart 
open  to  God.  Before  long  the  con- 
viction would  return.  Soon  I  came  to 
rely  upon  it  as  a  sure  law,  just  as 
one  who  floats  throws  himself  in  con- 
fidence back  on  the  water.  By  and 
by,  however,  I  found  the  conviction 
stayed  with  me  permanently,  and  it 
has  remained  with  me  from  that  day 
to  this. 

It  seems  to  me  that  spiritual  world 
opens  to  us  in  various  ways.  Certain 
phases  of  it  may  manifest  itself  to  us 
because  by  nature  from  the  start  we 
may  have  a  certain  sensitive,  or  psy- 
chic, physical,  or  spiritual  organism. 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       97 

Sometimes  it  may  open  to  us  for  a 
few  minutes,  and  close  again,  or  open 
and  remain  open,  the  opening  coming 
unexplained,  and,  as  it  were,  by  acci- 
dent. Jacob  Boehme  saw  the  sun  re- 
flected from  a  bright  pan,  did  he  not^ 
Also  it  seems  to  me  that  opening  may 
be  secured  gradually  and  certainly, 
never  to  leave  us,  not  by  accident, 
but  in  so  orderly  and  sure  a  way 
under  natural  law  that  it  is  our  full 
personal  acquisition,  gained  with  the 
clear  understanding  of  the  intellect, 
as  our  advances  in  natural  science 
have  been  gained.  I  think  it  then 
comes  line  upon  line,  as  we  seek  to 
fight  our  fight  as  truly  as  we  may, 
now  a  subtle  breath  of  the  Spirit; 
then  a  whisper ;  each  taking  us  a  little 
farther  on  if  we  are  earnest  enough 


98       TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

and  sensitive  enough  and  wise  enough 
to  know  the  value  of  what  is  said  to 
us,  and  take  the  leisure  of  soul  to 
reflect  upon  it  and  make  it  fully  ours. 
I  do  not  wish  to  seem  to  be  claiming 
too  much  for  my  own  personal  ex- 
perience. It  is  the  view  of  things 
systematized  and  completed  by 
thought  to  which  my  observation  and 
fragments  of  experience  and  insight 
lead  me. 

What  you  said  of  the  sense  of 
rhythm  interested  me  very  deeply, 
for  a  certain  sense  of  terror  before 
life,  a  fear  of  being  unable  to  do 
enough  and  have  enough  power  and 
have  enough  achieved  in  time  to  meet 
its  demands,  has  been  one  of  my 
greatest  oppressions.  In  troubled 
dreams  I  dream  again  and  again  of 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY       99 

awaking  tc  a  consciousness  that  I  am 
hopelessly  late  to  some  absolutely 
essential  engagement.  The  mad  rush 
for  efficiency  in  material  things,  the 
crack  of  the  whip,  impress  me  pro- 
foundly, though  I  meet  such  fears 
with  a  growing  sense  of  power  and 
glad  understanding.  For  a  long  time 
that  thought  of  rhythm,  a  keeping 
time  to  a  spiritually  heard,  mate- 
rially inaudible,  harmony  (this  is  a 
figure  of  speech,  of  course),  has  been 
present  with  me  as  the  solution  of  the 
difficulty.  Some  years  ago  I  was 
silly  enough  to  seek  to  repair  the 
neglect  of  certain  elements  in  my 
earlier  education,  and  at  a  rather  late 
age,  and  rather  imperfectly,  I  learned 
to  dance.  From  that  amusement, 
long    ago    abandoned,    one    remem- 


lOO    TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

brance  of  especial  value  I  carry  away 
with  me  is  of  a  form  of  action  not 
under  the  lash,  nor  ever  straining  to 
become  faster  and  faster  till  strength 
fails  and  with  no  limit  or  goal  ahead, 
but  a  form  of  action  which  is  a  glad 
fellowship  with  other  people  which  is 
rest  and  joy,  where  every  step  is 
taken  at  the  right  time  to  a  simple 
music  which  governs  all,  a  form  of 
action  which  excludes  all  nervous 
strain  to  go  faster,  because  each  mo- 
tion and  time  is  perfect,  and  to  move 
faster  would  destroy  the  perfection. 

"His  brethren  therefore  said  unto 
him,  Depart  hence  and  go  into  Judea. 
— Jesus  saith  unto  them.  My  time  is 
not  yet  come;  but  your  time  is  al- 
ways ready." 

But  as  to  the  wonders  which  I  be- 


t    i      ■>    1   a 
>■»',•'     »    > 

.•>)■>       1  . 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY    lOl 

lieve  are  glad  and  beautiful  beyond 
any  conception  of  ours,  and  which 
are  around  us  on  every  hand,  I  am 
not  in  any  hurry  for  them  to  open 
to  me  too  rapidly.  For  this  also  there 
is  a  time.  I  pray  God  that  nothing 
may  be  opened  to  me  that  should  not 
be  opened  and  that  nothing  may  be 
opened  before  the  due  time,  but  also 
that  nothing  that  I  should  see  may  be 
hidden  from  me  by  my  unfaithful- 
ness or  dullness  of  heart. 

XII 

A  New  and  Glorious  World  * 

I  am  of  that  set  of  persons  who 
believe  you  are  speaking  the  truth  in 

*  Reprinted  from  The  Atlantic  Monthly. 
Owing  to  the  address  having  been  lost,  it 


102    TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

"Twenty  Minutes  of  Reality" — that 
you  "saw  into  reality,"  and  felt  the 
ecstasy  of  its  atmosphere — I  believe, 
because  I,  too,  have  had  several  of 
those  "rare  and  fleeting  occasions"  of 
which  you  write  so  well. 

The  first  of  these  came  when  I  was 
a  child  of  eleven  years.  Mother  had 
often  talked  with  me  about  Jesus,  so 
that  I  think  I  really  loved  him,  but  I 
did  doubt  a  bit  whether  he  loved  me. 
I  longed  to  know  he  did.  One  Sun- 
day noon,  after  I  had  been  speaking 

has  been  impossible  to  secure  the  writer's 
permission  to  reprint  this  very  beautiful 
letter.  Should  the  author  of  it  see  it  thus 
printed  without  her  consent  the  author  of 
Twenty  Minutes  of  Reality  earnestly 
hopes  that  she  will  forgive  the  liberty  and 
believe  that  it  would  not  have  been  taken 
could  it  have  been  avoided. 


TWENTY    MINUTES   OF   REALITY     IO3 

to  him  in  my  childish  way,  suddenly 
a  great  light  seemed  to  burst  upon 
me:  not  an  external  light— an  in- 
ward light.  I  cannot  put  it  in  words 
as  you  can.  It  was  a  new  and  glori- 
ous world,  a  world  of  ineffable  love 
and  light  which  seemed  to  emanate 
from  a  Presence  which  I  knew  to  be 
there  but  which  I  could  not  see.  I 
thought  it  was  Jesus.  My  little  heart 
throbbed  with  ecstasy  at  what  seemed 
to  me  his  smile.  My  body  seemed 
light  and  I  felt  as  if  walking  on  air. 
I  had  to  tell  some  one  my  joy,  and 
sought  my  oldest  sister  and  said  tim- 
idly, "I  have  found  Jesus  I  I  am  so 
happy.     It  is  all  light  now  I" 

This  sort  of  inner  glory  lasted  an 
hour  or  two,  or  till  the  middle  of  the 
afternoon  service,  when  it  vanished 


104    TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

as  suddenly  as  it  came  and  left  me 
bewildered  and  desolate.  I  had  to 
whisper  to  my  sister  then,  for  I  could 
not  wait  for  the  end  of  the  service. 
I  said  in  my  distress,  "I've  lost  Him! 
It  is  all  dark  again.  What  shall  I 
do?"  I  am  eighty-one  years  old,  but 
that  vision  and  its  ecstasy  are  so  vivid 
in  memory  as  had  it  opened  on  me 
to-day. 

Several  "Twenty  Minutes  of  Real- 
ity" have  come  to  me  later  in  life. 
Once  at  a  great  crisis,  a  mental  strain, 
accompanied  with  a  humiliating  sense 
of  inability  to  act  strongly,  I  had  a 
sudden  vision  of  a  central  self  which 
almost  overwhelmed  me.  It  was  a 
reservoir  of  new,  unguessed  powers, 
measureless  capacities,  and  unfath- 
omed   emotions  —  a   reservoir   from 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY     IO5 

which  I  had  never  drawn  because  this 
present  life  offered  neither  time  nor 
scope  for  what  was  there,  and  I  in- 
voluntarily exclaimed,  "Now,  I  know 
I  am  immortal!  I  am  more  than  I 
dreamed  I  was  I" 

At  another  time  of  prolonged  men- 
tal strain  and  perplexity  I  went  one 
day  to  walk  in  the  fields.  All  at  once 
the  strain  ceased  as  would  the  pres- 
sure on  a  severed  cord.  I  was  flooded 
with  an  ineffable  soul-light  which 
seemed  to  radiate  from  a  great  Per- 
sonality with  whom  I  was  in  immedi- 
ate touch.  I  felt  it  to  be  the  touch 
of  God.  The  ecstasy  was  beyond 
description — but  you  know  it.  I  was 
passing  through  a  patch  of  "beggar's 
grass,"  which  you  may  know,  with  its 
wiry  stems,  ending  in  feathery  heads. 


106    TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY 

Every  head  shone  and  glistened  like 
pearls.  I  could  hardly  walk  for  the 
overwhelming  sense  of  the  Divine 
Presence,  and  its  joy.  I  almost  saw 
God. 

A  singular  thing  accompanied  this 
experience.  A  little  white  dog,  which 
was  my  companion,  and  which  had 
walked  discreetly  by  my  side  all  the 
way,  began  to  dance  and  frisk  about 
me  at  this  moment,  barking  and  look- 
ing up  at  me  as  if  I  were  holding  up 
some  tempting  morsel  for  him  to 
spring  for.  He  evidently  saw  or  felt 
something  that  excited  him.  Did  he 
see  the  light  on  the  beggar's  grass,  I 
wonder,  or  did  he  feel  the  vibrations 
of  my  ecstasy  *?  Perhaps  all  created 
things  are  part  of  one  great  whole. 
Perhaps  little  brown  sparrows,  little 


TWENTY    MINUTES    OF    REALITY     IO7 

white  dogs,  internes,  nurses,  convales- 
cing gentlemen,  and  old  ladies  are 
cosmic  cousins,  capable  of  a  respon- 
sive family  sympathy. 

I  have  never  spoken  to  any  one  of 
these  wonderful  and  beautiful  ex- 
periences, because  I  felt  no  one  would 
understand.  They  were  very  vivid, 
but  now  that  I  have  put  them  into 
words,  they  seem  very  colorless.  Lan- 
guage is  so  blurring  to  any  attempted 
picture  of  the  deep  things  of  the 
Spirit. 

I  feel  that  I  ought  to  apologize  be- 
cause, having  found  one  to  under- 
stand, I  have  spoken.  Yet,  why 
should  not  spies  who  have  seen 
the  Promised  Land  compare  their 
bunches  of  grapes  on  their  return? 


^^- 


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